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Notable Women of Olden Time by Anonymous
page 126 of 147 (85%)
The young queen must have felt like one awakened from a sleep to find
herself upon the brink of a precipice. Her situation was full of danger.
The flush of royal favour was past. She was neglected and forgotten. Her
splendid palace was indeed but a prison, and her lordly consort might
prove her executioner. For a long time she had not seen the king or
received the least token of royal favour or remembrance, and a new
favourite might have succeeded her in the court of the capricious
voluptuary. Yet she was sternly charged by Mordecai to rouse herself,
meet the peril, and, if possible, save her people, while he taught her
to recognise the designs of a wise Providence in her elevation.

"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that
thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if
thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there
enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but
thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether
thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

In the appeals of Mordecai to Esther, we may recognise the principles
upon which he had trained her. The sense of duty, the obligations of
religion, the call to self-sacrifice and exertion, had all been
instilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on
the throne. Yet there must have been a conflict in the heart of Esther,
before she could adopt the decision which might accelerate the doom of
her people, while, if her appeal failed, her own fate was scaled with
their's.

Surrounded by all the splendour of the court, with all the pleasures
that pomp and power can command, with troops of menials treading marble
halls, with the more genial luxuries of fair flowers and pure fountains
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